Habit-Forming Designs to Eliminate Behavioral Addictions

There's an ongoing debate about whether the habit-forming designs are ethical at their core, and we've seen what modern designs can do to an ordinary user and his attention:

• Gradually develops dependence on virtual validation through likes, positive comments, and an increased number of followers, which is all a surrogate and replacement for real connections
• Encourages behavioral addictions related to gambling, dating, shopping, and news
• Reduces user attention span because of how unchallenging and simplistic the content gets, for example: video reels, shorts, and tweets. 

Designers serve companies' interests, ensuring that their targeted users engage with the offered services continuously and, in some cases, develop behavioral patterns that would keep them hooked on the given app or website. Such designs have an intentionally strategic approach that taps into the user's goals and pain points. 

The Hooked book, written by Nir Eyal, explicitly discusses the model that helps designers build applications for user retention and their continuous engagement with these apps.

The author taps into human vulnerabilities that are the foundation of their internal triggers, such as fear, loneliness, boredom, or any other negative emotional experience that would motivate users to do something to alleviate such feelings.

The Hooked Model demonstrates stages in user engagement that lead to habit formation:

Considering how well this model works with user retention and their habit development, it may serve an even more important purpose: to help fight behavioral addictions. To name a few that are very popular these days:

• Eating disorders
• Gambling
• Impulsive spending
• Attachment issues
• FOMO (fear of missing out) in dating

Below is an example of how the Hook Model can be applied in creating an app to help someone with spending addiction:

Hook Model for Impulsive Spending Recovery App

The hook model and the design example above demonstrate the continuous loop of four stages that keeps a user engaged with the app. The internal triggers that this model accesses are at the core of every user's needs or scarcity of these needs. This means that regardless of the surface reason behind the user's motivation, such as:

        "I need a reliable, high-performance car."

...there is another one that lies a little deeper:

         "Life feels dull - I need a change."

But this isn't the final explanation, because there is one that is even deeper:

         "I can't change everything, but I can choose this."

And if we narrow it down to the very basic, we get the root cause of all the above reasons:

        "I can't change everything around me, but with this purchase, I reclaim control."

Another example that showcases social media addiction:

Surface layer: "I want to be notified when I receive a new comment."

Deeper layer: "I want to ensure that my post resonates with many."

Even deeper: "I need to feel validated because I want proof that my existence is meaningful."

The root cause: "I am afraid to be rejected and stay alone."

Identifying the root cause of users' pain points is what makes the design impactful, and at the same time, it offers users the promise that their life quality can be significantly improved.